Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese or Celia Grillo Borromeo (1684 – 23 August 1777) was an Italian (Genovese)

natural philosopher Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior throu ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

Life and education

Borromeo was born in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

, the daughter of duke Marcantonio of Mondragone and Maria Antonia, the marquise Imperial. Borromeo was educated in several languages, mathematics,

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

and mechanics. She spoke eight languages and was interested in geometry, natural science and mathematics. She was educated first by her mother and then in a convent, but it is unknown where she received education in the subjects she became known for. In 1707, she married count Giovanni Borromeo Arese Benedict (1679–1744), and became the mother of eight children. Borromeo died in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Contributions

She was famous for her ability to solve every mathematical problem presented to her. Borromeo was described as an independent person, which was regarded as eccentric because it was not considered natural for her gender. She was criticized for entertaining many scientists, both foreign and Italian, who were known as atheists. One of her guests was

Antonio Vallisneri Antonio Vallisneri ( Trassilico,3 May 1661 – Padua, 18 January 1730), also rendered as ''Antonio Vallisnieri'', was an Italian medical scientist, physician and naturalist. Life Vallisneri was born in Trassilico, a small village in Garfagnana, ...

(1661–1733). She founded the academy nell'Academia Vigilantium Clelia in her salon in Milan, which was active in 1719–1726. During the war in 1746, Borromeo took the side of Spain against Austria and was therefore exiled. When she was allowed to return to Milan, she was celebrated as a heroine. In 1728, Borromeo discovered the so-called Clélie

curve In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line (geometry), line, but that does not have to be Linearity, straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point (ge ...

: ''q'' = ''mƒ''. When the

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

and colatitude of a point ''P'' on a sphere are denoted by ''q'' and ''ƒ'' and if ''P'' moves so that ''q'' = ''mƒ'', where ''m'' is a constant, then the locus of ''P'' is called a clélie.

Recognition

The city of Genoa honored her with a medal with the inscription ''Genuensium Gloria'' (The Honor of Genoa).

References

* http://scienzaa2voci.unibo.it/biografie/56-grillo-borromeo-arese-clelia * G. G. Fagioli Vercellone, Grillo, Clelia (del), in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 55, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, pp. 450–454. {{DEFAULTSORT:Borromeo, Celia Grillo 1684 births 1777 deaths Scientists from Genoa 18th-century Italian mathematicians 17th-century Italian mathematicians Italian salon-holders Italian countesses 18th-century Italian women Italian women scientists Women mathematicians 18th-century Italian women scientists Women founders